It is cold in New York today and probably just as well that Game 5 of the ALDS begins in the late afternoon instead of tonight.
It’s down to CC and the bats, minus Alex Rodriguez:
Derek Jeter SS
Ichiro Suzuki LF
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Raul Ibanez DH
Nick Swisher RF
Curtis Granderson CF
Russell Martin C
Eric Chavez 3B
Never mind nuthin’ but today. Once more–with feeling:
Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Via: Running Amuck]
David Thomson: American Movies Are Not Dead, They Are Dying.
Woman on the elevator at work this morning goes, “I was up late with those stupid Yankees.”
“So was I. They’re killin’ me.”
“I can’t wait for tonight.”
“You’re a glutton for punishment, too, huh?”
“Of course.” She smiled.
“Yeah, me too.”
Then I smiled.
“Winged Victory of Samothrace,” photo by Cate Copenhaver via Arpeggia.
From Whole Foods, via Food 52, here’s how to roast garlic.
Collage by Erwan Soyer.
Arart: Wow.
I don’t feel much better this morning, you? Maybe some optimism will creep in as the day goes on–there’s CC to look forward to after all–but right now I’m cranky.
What you guys got?
[Picture by Bags]
When we talk about 1968 in baseball we think of Bob Gibson and all those low earned run averages and what is called “The Year of the Pitcher.” But when he wrote about it at the time, Roger Angell dubbed that season “the Year of the Infield Pop Up” which just goes to show how perception changes.
The Yankees and Orioles have been at each all year long, splitting the regular season series, 9-9. The O’s chased the Yanks down in the second half, tied them for first but couldn’t get passed them. They beat the Rangers in the Wildcard game and then split the first two games of the ALDS in Baltimore with the Yanks before getting hosed out of a win in Game 3. All the games have been close and apart from a mirage of scoring by the Yanks at the end of the first game, nobody has hit much.
So you could say that both offenses have been terrible—Alex Rodriguez has been hung in effigy in New York but he’s had company in futility, namely Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderon, and Nick Swisher. Baltimore has its own goats–Jones, Weiters, Thome. Or, you could say the pitching’s been sensational. Year of the pitcher or the infield pop-up? You decide.
More than anything we know the Yanks and O’s won’t let this thing go and so they played a game of reduction in Game 4, and brought horrible offense and stellar pitching into the 13th inning, tied at 1-1.
Despite some rocky moments from Phil Hughes and Joe Saunders, who looks like the barfly from Sex, Lies and Videotape…
…nobody scored. Oh, there were some horseshit pitches, and hard hit balls foul. Nick Swisher hit two balls off the end of his bat that otherwise would have been dingers, Jayson Nix hit a few balls well, and the Orioles left a ton of runners on base, but no, there were no runs.
Alex Rodriguez walked in his first at bat, singled in his second, and then continued to look like crap–old, slow, beaten. The most painful moment came when the Yankees had runners on first and second in the eighth and nobody out. Robinson Cano grounded out weakly to second moving the runners over. Rodriguez whiffed and Swisher popped out.
The bullpens were both terrific and score remained tied 1-1 until the O’s manufactured a run in the top of the 13th. J. J. Hardy drove in the go-ahead run with a double to left of Dave Phelps. This, after Joba Chamberlain left the game an inning early when he was hit in his pitching elbow with the a broken bat (x-rays were negative).
That brought on the closer Jim Johnson to face Mark Teixeira, Cano, and, of course, looming as the potential final out, Rodriguez. He quickly got ahead of Teixeira, then the count evened at 2-2, Teixeira fouled off an outside fastball, a high fastball, and looked at a curve ball for a called strike three. Shades of Carlos Beltran in 2006.
Cano lined the first pitch he saw to the left fielder and most Yankee fans were ready to throw in the towel. For a second straight night, Joe Girardi didn’t let Rodriguez hit against Johnson. This time, Eric Chavez took his place. Joe Girardi hoping–desperately–for some more magic. Chavez, looked a curve for strike, took a fastball high for a ball, fouled off a 95 mph heater, fouled off another fastball, took a curve outside, and lined a fastball to third base to end the game. No magic tonight.
What else could it have come down to for these two but Game 5? The season series is 11-11 and the winner will move on.
This is what it had to be.
Final Score: O’s 2, Yanks 1.
The Good News for Game 5? The Yanks have CC Sabathia on the hill. The bad news? Somebody in pinstripes is going to have to score some runs.
[Featured Image Via Stable]
It’s Phil Hughes vs. Joe Saunders. Someone is getting their tits lit tonight. Let’s hope it’s not Hughes. And if he falters early, Dave Phelps, and perhaps even Derek Lowe, could play big roles for the Yanks.
Derek Jeter DH
Ichiro Suzuki LF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Nick Swisher RF
Russell Martin C
Curtis Granderson CF
Jayson Nix SS
Never mind the emotion (the Win is the Thing): Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Staton Rabin/ National Geographic]
Joe Girardi’s father, Jerry, died today. He was 81. Giardi is expected to manage tonight.
Joel Sherman first reported the news on Twitter.
[Photo Credit: Bob Luckey / Greenwich Time]
(Source: Al Bello/Getty Images North America)
Raul Ibanez spent the regular season compiling big hits, but he saved his most spectacular heroics for October. Now, he stands among the Yankees’ legion of immortals as one of the most clutch performers in the franchise’s postseason history.
The Yankees have had no shortage of October heroes, but with two mighty blows, Ibanez thrust his name to the top of the list. By homering to tie the game in the ninth and then following up with a walk-off encore in the 12th inning, Ibanez racked up the highest cumulative Win Probability Added (WPA) in the team’s postseason history, surpassing Charlie Keller’s clutch hitting in game four of the 1941 World Series. In addition, Ibanez’ epic performance also cracked the top-five for all of baseball, and made the 40-year old slugger the first player to hit a homerun in both the ninth inning and extra innings of the same postseason game.
Top-10 Postseason WPA, Yankees and MLB
Source: Baseball-reference.com
In addition to rescuing the Yankees from a pivotal game-three defeat, Ibanez also saved Joe Girardi from having to face intense scrutiny for using him as a pinch hitter for Alex Rodriguez. In addition, Arod was able to spend the post game magnanimously applauding his teammate instead of having to answer unfair questions about his perceived inability to produce in the postseason. Of course, the irony is that if there was one man in the clubhouse who knew exactly how Ibanez felt, it was Rodriguez.
Before Ibanez’ game-tying homerun in the ninth inning, the last hitter to erase a postseason deficit in his team’s final turn was, you guessed it, Alex Rodriguez. In 2009, Arod actually accomplished the rare feat on two occasions: the first against Joe Nathan in game two of the ALDS and the second against Brian Fuentes in game two of the ALCS. Only 32 postseason home runs have helped a team tie or take the lead when trailing in the ninth inning or later, and Johnny Bench and Arod are the only players to do it twice.
Yankees’ Top-10 Postseason Hits, by WPA
Source: Baseball-reference.com
It amusing to note that Rodriguez has compiled three of the top-10 WPA ratings in the Yankees long and illustrious postseason history (he also owns the highest WPA in the franchise’s regular season history). Although his struggles in the current ALDS are undeniable, the relentless characterization of Arod as an unclutch performer remains one of the great mysteries of irrational fandom. Fortunately, Joe Girardi isn’t as fickle as far too many Yankee fans. If he was, Raul Ibanez, who batted .057 in 60 plate appearances over a 24-game span at the end of the season, probably wouldn’t even be on the postseason roster. That’s something to think about the next time you feel the urge to overreact to a small sample.
Awesome Playoff Day Open Thread. Today, I’m rooting for the Reds, Nats, Yanks, and A’s.
Let’s Go Base-ball!
[Photo Via: It’s a Long Season]
Last gasp of summer. Dig in to this orecchiette recipe over at the Lemon Fire Brigade.
With two swings of the bat, Raul Ibanez won Game 3 of the ALDS for the Yankees 3-2. Joe Girardi, in one of the ballsiest managerial moves in Yankee history, asked Ibanez to pinch hit for currently lost-in-the-woods Alex Rodriguez in the ninth inning. The Yankees trailed 2-1 at the time, there was one out, and the needle on the season was edging towards “disaster.”
Ibanez took a curve ball low and inside from Jim Johnson to start the at bat. The Oriole closer came back with his trademark sinker aiming low and away. The ball hung over the middle and Ibanez leaped on it. It was a lot like his homer to tie game 161 against the Red Sox, but struck even better than that.
There was a whole a lot of tense nothing after that until Ibanez led off the bottom of the twelfth against lefty Brian Matusz. Matusz had handled lefties Eric Chavez and Ichiro Suzuki with ease in the eleventh, giving them one decent pitch to hit early in the count and then driving them out of the strike zone. He tried the same trick on Ibanez, but Raul had target lock engaged and destroyed the 91 MPH fastball for the game-winner and possible season-saver.
Enough cannot be said of Ibanez, Girardi, Kuroda and Robertson. Ibanez will get, and deserves, every headline and accolade, but he wouldn’t have had a chance in the ninth if it wasn’t for Kuroda. Ditto the twelfth if it wasn’t for Robertson. And of course Joe Girardi, who never gets any credit and often takes a ton criticism, especially on the internet, chose the perfect time to pull the plug on his support for Alex Rodriguez. With Ibanez he gained the platoon advantage and the confidence advantage as the lefty slugger had just come through in a similar spot against a right-handed closer. If Girardi has lost Rodriguez for the rest of the series, so be it. I’d rather be up 2-1 without Arod than down 1-2 with him.
Going back to the pre-Ibanez portion of the game, Hiroki Kuroda was tremendous. A likable stalwart in a season full of uncertainty, he delivered a solid performance into the ninth inning. Kuroda cruised through his night on only 105 pitches and only allowed six base runners. Two solo homers to the bottom of the order were the only marks on his record. Yankee fans gave him the ovation he deserved as he left the game.
As good as Hiroki Kuroda was, Miguel Gonzalez was better. He went through the Yankees for seven innings with ease. He rung up eight Yanks, allowed almost no hard hit balls (were there any other than double and triple that plated the Yanks’ lone run?) and crucially walked no one. He was too tough.
Or maybe he was just pretty good and the Yankees met him halfway to awesome. I openly wonder if the Yankees would have had a more productive night if they just never swung the bat. For three straight games now, they’ve missed almost every cookie they’ve been served with foul balls and pop ups. And they’re so eager to do some damage that they’re expanding the zone in very counterproductive ways. Of the eleven times the Yanks struck out in this game, all were swinging whiffs, and the vast majority were on balls out of the strike zone. The Yankees were over aggressive, undisciplined and rendered utterly ineffective.
Derek Jeter picked up two more hits, though his RBI triple was a gift from Adam Jones. He’s one of the few Yankees who might get a hit at some point tomorrow night, so it’s bad news that he had to come out of the game with a leg injury. He smashed a foul ball off his toe and never looked comfortable after that. When he struck out in the eighth, he was barely able to gain his balance after each swing. Still put on a better at bat than anything Arod, Cano, Granderson or Teixeira could muster. Unless that foot has to be sawed off, Jeter’s playing tomorrow. If they amputate, downgrade him to probable.
But back to Raul Ibanez. He just hit a couple of the most important home runs in Yankee Postseason history. He’s on the list. From the color TV days, there’s Chambliss ’76, Dent ’78 (not Postseason but still), Jeter/Bernie ’96, Leyritz ’96, Justice ’00, Tino/Brosius/Jeter ’01, Boone ’03, Arod ’09. Probably missing some, but that’s a pretty good start (Reggie and Matsui of course, but maybe that’s a slightly different list, and heck, put Ibanez on that one too with his two bombs tonight).
The lack of hitting in the Postseason always confounds me. I always think, “Why can’t this be the year where they just get hot and blast their way to the Series?” But it never works that way and I need to stop being surprised that Jason Hammel, Wei-Yin Chen and Miguel Gonzalez turn into the 1963 Dodgers as soon as the calendar flips to October. The difference this time, hopefully, is that the Yankees have the starters to support the offensive outage.
All three Yankee starters have worked into the eighth and two of them were still on the hill in the ninth! A timely hit in Game 2 and the Yanks would have just swept this thing. Phil Hughes gets the baton and it doesn’t matter who he faces. It’s gonna be Koufax, Drysdale, Alexander, Gibson and Schilling all wrapped into some Oriole schlub and Hughes will need to be his best to keep them in the game. The Yankees probably won’t hit, but they just might win.
Top Photo by Bill Kostroun/AP via ESPN
Other Photos by Alex Trautwig and Al Bello / Getty Images via ESPN
Early for a game thread but what the hell?
There’s no lineup change for Alex Rodriguez and the Yanks but Eric Chavez is playing third and batting ninth.
Derek Jeter SS
Ichiro Suzuki LF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Russell Martin C
Eric Chavez 3B
RHP Hiroki Kuroda
Never mind those pesky boids: LET’S GO YANK-EES!
[Photo Credit: ari j. greenberg]
